Photo by: Michael Furman
It isn’t usual for a team to lose nine players as the Pioneers did at the end of last season, but for hockey head coach George Gwozdecky this isn’t the first time he had to rebuild at short notice.
“I think it was in my third year here, we were unable to have a freshman class, so that caught up to us a few years later when eight or nine guys left all at the same time,” said Gwozdecky. “It’s happened before but it doesn’t happen a lot, but that’s the situation you put yourself in when you are one of the nations top programs.”
A year after winning the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s regular season title and being awarded the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, the Pioneers look to replace eight departed players, including sophomores Patrick Wiercioch and Joe Colborne who eschewed their final two years, college to play in the NHL.
In addition to young talent, the Pioneers also graduated six seniors, including the talented Tyle Ruegsegger and Rhett Rakhsani, who bolted to the NHL as well.
Filling the leadership void are senior forwards Kyle Ostrow and Anthony Maiani.
“Leadership is something you do on and off the ice,” said Maiani. “For me it is about leading the way, doing well in school and working hard on the ice, and it really is anything you can do to the younger guys to tag along with you and do perform their job at a higher level.”
Although the Pioneers lost four of their top five leading scorers last season gone, their biggest loss may have came when goalie Marc Cheverie, the WCHA’s 2009-2010 Player of the Year, graduated early and signed with the NHL’s Florida Panthers.
“They are big shoes to fill,” said sophomore goalie Adam Murray about filling Cheverie’s void.
For now, Murray will rotate with freshman Sam Brittain in net, but Murray has the experience advantage after starting six games last season.
“It was key for me to get a lot of experience playing good team last year,” said Murray. “I benefited from having Marc’s leadership and I trained this past summer with [former DU] goalie Peter Mannino. I think if I can carry over what they did, or even half of what they did, then we will have a good season.”
Murray, an Anchorage, Alaska native, competed with Cheverie as a freshman for the starting position, but allowed an average of 3.81 goals a per game when on the ice.
However, this season Murray will be playing with a balanced group of experienced defensemen that includes seniors Chris Nutini and John Ryder as well as sophomores Matt Donovan, Paul Phillips, and William Wrenn.
“Goalie is a huge part of the defense, because he can see what is going on in front of us and it is important for him to communicate with us,” said Donovan.
Donovan has already shined for the Pioneers, totaling four points in last Saturday’s 8-1 win over the U.S. U18 team.
While it is obvious that old players are stepping up into bigger roles, the Pioneers benefit from an infusion of a talented freshman class.
“Beau Bennet, Nick Shore and Jason Zucker are all freshmen who are going to play roles this season and those roles will require ice time,” said Gwozdecky. “They will be asked to contribute right off the bat.”
As important as the new blood will be, the teams upperclassmen will need to prove they can reload from a season ago where the Pioneers finished with 27 wins.
At forward, the team brings back several seniors, including Ostrow, Maiani and Jesse Martin, who will all start on the teams first line come Friday’s season opener versus Vermont.
In addition, Ryder and Nutini will lead at their respective position.
“We are going to be looking at line pairing and combinations in these first couple of weeks, seeing what units work best on the power play and the penalty kill,” said Gwozdecky. “There are lots of evaluations to make, so we can identify what are top team is.”
The early schedule will test the team with three nationally ranked opponents, No. 1 Boston College, No. 13 Wisconsin, and No. 2 North Dakota, rounding out the October schedule after the Vermont series.
“I think it would be disappointing if we didn’t have challenging competition and nationally ranked teams on our schedule,” Gwozdecky said. “That’s what we want and that’s how we are going to improve.”
Despite the apparent disadvantages of losing their top players and playing a hard opening month of games, the Pioneers are confident in the players that fill the locker room this season.
“Whoever is gone is gone and whoever is here is here and we have our team now and that is what matters,” said Donovan.
